Exercises in Futility
by AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: 1499 - 1548. "How strange that the strains of a virginal should make a tankard of ale all the more appealing." Or, five gestures by five Tudor courtiers across five decades, that may or may not have tipped the scales, and may or may not have been simply to ease their own consciences. Oneshot. Canon and historically accurate.


**A/N:** The first scene is set during Episode 12 of "The Shadow of the Tower" during the argument between Henry VII and Margaret Beaufort over the Earl of Warwick, to which Arthur is a silent witness. No need to have watched that serial to understand this fic, though.

Warnings for references to past sexual abuse and period-typical victim blaming in the last scene.

* * *

 **1499**

Father signs the death warrant for Ralph Wulfard- yet another pretender who assumed the Earl of Warwick's identity- and Arthur sprinkles pounce over the ink so that it may dry. The warrant is handed over to the servant standing at attention. "It is our wish that the execution take place as soon as possible."

His grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, My Lady the King's Mother, sits by the fireplace, shrewd eyes and her hands folded decisively at her chin. "And the Earl of Warwick, my lord?"

"Build our colleges, Mother. Found our professorships. But leave England to me." His father's voice brooks no disapproval.

As the eldest child and Prince of Wales, Arthur has always been set apart from the rest of the Tudor brood. He has always been the closest to his father, while it is an ill-kept secret that their mother favors Harry the most. It's why Arthur is here now, assisting his father and beginning to learn how to take a hand in matters of state.

"I lay the foundations for the minds of our people. You should be laying the foundation for their peace. You'll have none." Grandmother rises from her chair, advancing upon Father until she gazes down at him, almost menacingly. Arthur backs away wisely, melting into the background.

"There will be no peace in this country as long as there are Yorkist pretenders. And there _will_ be pretenders as long as you keep Warwick alive. Kill him, and you kill rebellion."

Their mother may be closest to Harry, but there are times when Queen Elizabeth of York takes her firstborn into her confidence as well. He still shares that bond with his mother, and at times, she speaks to him in whispers. She speaks of the Princes in the Tower, of two little boys who went in and never came out. Of another "Prince" who still lingers in the Tower, or rather, an Earl with an overabundance of royal blood in his veins.

To the younger children, they are little better than legends, almost myths, tales of a far-off time, like the tales of the Cousins' War. But as eldest and the heir, Arthur has always been able to understand what the little ones do not. He understands instinctively that there are some matters that they do not speak of to his father or his grandmother.

"What would you have me charge him with? His birthright?"

"Why not?"

Silence hangs thick and heavy in the chamber. Father breaks it first with a meaningful jerk of the head to the lingering servant. "My Lord…"

The man departs, leaving the royal family to bicker in private. Grandmother shakes her head as she contemplates Father. She is almost breathless with impatience and fervor as she spits out her words like they are rotten on her tongue. "Charges, _legalities_ …"

"He has done no wrong." Father's voice is firm and decisive.

"The men you fought and who died for Richard at Bosworth, they'd done no wrong either."

"Then we were at war."

"You are _still_ at war!"

Father rises, as though hoping to escape the chastisement his mother is raining upon him. Arthur remains a silent witness, his mother's words of war and a hard-earned peace ringing in his ears. He learns his most important lessons on kingship from his father, but there are the smaller, almost invisible lessons that his mother passes on to him as well, tucked into the folds of his memory. Of the weight of responsibility, of how when you become a mother, you are a mother first before you are a sister, or a daughter, or a cousin. Of how he must always remember the blood shed in his name when he becomes King. That there are things done for him that he cannot help, and there are things that might be done for him that he cannot help, but he must honor them all the same.

Seeing his father, the King before him, Arthur thinks he may have an insight into what her lessons mean.

Grandmother Beaufort is relentless. "Plan a legal state, make laws if you will, and enforce them with the people. But you, yourself, _cannot_ be committed to peacetime laws, until you have removed ever traitor Plantagenet stock from the face of the earth!"

Father sinks into the same chair that Grandmother was occupying only moments earlier, close to where Arthur stands.

 _"You_ are now King. Make it safe and certain that Arthur will be King after you."

Father reaches a hand up, places it on Arthur's shoulder as though anchoring himself. "He will be, Madam, and peacefully too."

"While Warwick lives?" Grandmother is incredulous.

"You should have mothered a Plantagenet." Father glances away, as though in disgust. "The Tudor dynasty will not be founded on murder."

"Then there will be no dynasty."

" _Don't_ ," Father closes his eyes for a moment, as though physically pained by the words he is saying, " _don't_ try and make me a _Richard_."

Father all but spits out the name of the Usurper.

Grandmother's countenance becomes sorrowful, almost pitying. "I wouldn't wish that, my son. Richard make mistakes, and the greatest mistake cost him the crown. He allowed you to live."

With that, she strides off. Father glances up at Arthur, as though expecting his son, a boy not yet thirteen, to have answers. Having none to give, Arthur instead circles an arm around his father's shoulders. He is surprised to find his father had already begun to do the same as well, and Arthur is not sure whether his father is offering or asking for an embrace. Whatever the answer, he hopes his father finds comfort in it. It's all Arthur has to give, anyway.

* * *

 **1526**

The King sends letters and gifts, professing his love and his desire to offer courtship, and Anne is both flattered and terrified.

She does not confide her innermost thoughts to him; matters of the heart are saved for her sister, her mother, and other female companions. But Anne has always been the closest to Thomas Boleyn of his three children (his favorite, if he's honest with himself), and he can tell his daughter does not know what to make of the King's attentions.

Thomas does not like the idea, and not just because of his paternal instincts. He has seen Mary be burnt by two Kings, and he is wary of Anne going the same way. She has too much going for her; she is not the kind of woman who has a few rolls in the haystack with the King and is then palmed off on some complaint courtier. No, Anne, _his_ little Nan, is meant for greater things than that. Besides, it is too soon after the Harry Percy debacle; Thomas cannot be sure whether Anne is truly in love or merely settling for the King.

He is a skilled diplomat and ambassador, best linguist in all the court, the favorite of Margaret of Austria, the King of France, and Erasmus, yet he can find no languages, no turns of phrase by which he may persuade a king.

So he persuades his daughter instead (though persuading Anne is another gauntlet in itself). He counsels her not to have dealings of any kind with the King, to let the storm of his passion die a natural death and fade away.

Anne seems to agree, but asks how can she possibly say no to the King? It's the same question Thomas has been asking himself, and to his eternal frustration he cannot find an answer.

So he allows her to leave court with her mother and return to Hever. It galls him deeply, knowing it will likely cost his daughter her fine place as lady-in-waiting to the Queen, who will no doubt be glad to see Anen gone. Such a move may ruin her honor forever. Thomas can only hope his own honor will not suffer.

But perhaps distance will dull the King's passion as nothing else can, and they can put this behind them all. He will be frustrated, of course, but frustration is always easier to deal with than fury. And after all, Thomas Boleyn is not the greatest diplomat the Tudor court has ever seen for nothing.

* * *

 **1534**

Lady Margaret Bryan heads to the Great Hall at Hatfield one evening, looking forward to drowning her sorrows with a good tankard of ale. And number many do her sorrows. Elizabeth is teething and was fussy all day, there there has been an outbreak of sickness among the maids, and Anne has just lost her second child: the second failure to deliver a son in as many years.

She is only a few corridors from the Hall when she hears it- the far-off tinkling of virginals. It has been years and years since she heard it, but she recognizes the piece right away, as one of Prin- _Lady_ Mary's old favorites.

Meg is the Lady Governess to the Princess Elizabeth, charged with bringing her up and defending her against all enemies, including the bastard half-sister who usurps her title. She will fulfill the role of great honor that the King and her niece have tasked her with all due diligence. But she can remember a time when she served another girl, another Princess, and cared for her as though she were her own.

That spell may have ended when Mary was four years old and then she was transferred to the Countess of Salisbury's care. But no matter what edicts to the contrary, what threats the girl-turned-woman now poses, Meg's heart remembers a child who ran after the visiting organist, calling "Priest! Priest!", and would not relent until he played for her on his virginals.

The Lady Mary should not be making use of the Princess Elizabeth's belongings, notwithstanding the fact that Elizabeth's youth precludes the learning of any music for several years. A bastard has no claim on the heir to the throne's possessions, much less when she has duties to be attending to. Yet some instinct- be it, motherly, pitiful, or foolish- leads Meg to simply walk by the room, as though she had heard nothing, away from the tinkling melodies and onwards to the Great Hall. How strange that the strains of a virginal should make a tankard of ale all the more appealing.

* * *

 **1535**

The Duke of Norfolk glares at Nan Shelton, Lady Governess to the Lady Mary, displeasure writ in every line of his face. The Spanish bastard is still belligerent after more than a year of servitude, and continues to sneak out messages and defy the new regime. And the blame for such remiss has fallen upon Nan, who now finds herself scolded by the Duke for not treating Mary harshly enough. Yet his words are nothing compared to Nan's own scoldings that she hurls at herself.

Because the girl calls Anne a witch and Elizabeth a bastard; supports a false Spanish queen who would have the Emperor wage war on them and a Bishop of Rome who would shackle England to a rotting, corrupt Church; and Nan knows if she ever gained power she would have her family burnt at the stake.

And yet when the girl sows dresses for little Elizabeth and sings songs for her at every chance she gets, when she still gives what meager charity she can spare to the servants and inspires such love in them that they will risk their necks for her, when she carries herself with such grace despite the indignities Nan heaps upon her, when sadness steals across her face in the moments she thinks nobody is looking, when she so infuriatingly and yet so plaintively says her greatest wish is simply to be allowed to greet her father as is any daughter's right, the contradiction sticks in Nan's craw. The contradiction between the most wickedly unnatural papist who would burn all the Boleyns given half the chance and the ever despairing yet still desperately hopeful young woman who bears the weight of a dynasty's failure on her shoulders.

She knows she should not get upset. This is not her fight. Getting involved will accomplish nothing and only bring down further calamity upon her own head.

But even so, Nan snaps back at the greatest premier in all of England, regretting the words before they leave her mouth. "Even were she a poor gentleman's bastard, she would deserve better treatment for her goodness and her virtue."

* * *

 **1548**

The news of the Queen Dowager's death comes two days later in Hertfordshire, on Elizabeth's fifteenth birthday, and it feels symbolic, almost right in a way. That on the birthday that marks the dividing line between girlhood and womanhood she should lose the closest thing to a mother she ever had, and the closest thing she had left to a parent. She has finally lost the illusion that the love of a parent will protect her: the illusion that she ought to have lost in January 1547 (in May 1536, in all honesty), yet still pervades her for some reason.

But now she cannot fool herself; she knows she is truly alone, with neither father nor mother nor stepmother. The only vestige of a parent she has left is the Lord Admiral, and she will throw herself upon the fire before she regards _that_ title as anything other than a source of burning shame.

Queen Katherine had reassured her that it was not her fault, even after sending her away, and had been loving and forgiving to the end. But in the dead of night, when Elizabeth cannot sleep, she composes long letters of apology, though to whom she does not know. It is the only way to shake off how disoriented she feels, to think _if only I had been more circumspect or less foolish, things might have been different._

There is a strange comfort in it, to assert her own responsibility in what happened, a paradoxical power in thinking she could have altered what happened at Chelsea.

She does not know what good such thoughts can do her now, when the scandal has already broken and her reputation forever tarnished. Yet every night, she traces the words again and again, gleaming silver in her mind's eye, pulsating in equal measure with regret and certitude.

* * *

 **A/N:** The Thomas Boleyn vignette was inspired by Blurgle's posts on Tumblr about how he, like many of the Tudor era, has been unfairly maligned as a pimp daddy who used his daughters to gain favor. On the contrary, the surviving evidence shows he was a brilliant courtier and diplomat who was the best linguist at Henry VIII's court and whose friends included Margaret of Austria and Erasmus. When Henry began courting Anne, Thomas Boleyn counselled his daughter not to have dealings of any kind with the King, and even allowed her to leave her prestigious place at court as lady-in-waiting to escape the King's attentions, at great peril to Thomas's own honor.

Lady Bryan did serve as Mary's governess for a few years, until she was transferred over to Lady Salisbury's care. There is a historical anecdote about two-year-old Mary Tudor running after the Venetian organist, Dionysius Memo, calling "Priest! Priest!" and begging him to play for her.

Nan Shelton's words to Norfolk about Mary deserving better treatment are taken from history as well.

Katherine Parr died on September 5, 1548, just two days before Elizabeth's 15th birthday, something I have always found ominously symbolic.

There is something unbelievably angsty about the "outsider watches from the sidelines and desperately tries to mediate, despite the futility of the gesture and the personal danger to themselves" setup. So much that I found myself getting depressed just from writing this fic, and that's saying something because my work is almost always angsty. I suspect that the feeling of being trapped and able to mitigate your circumstances only in the smallest of ways was a constant theme throughout the Tudor dynasty; there are so many people whose true stories that we will never know and can only guess at.


End file.
